Masculinity, Femininity, and Masculinity-Femininity: A Phenomenological Study of the MF Scale of the MMPI

Abstract

College students evaluated responses by a hypothetical man and woman to the MMPI Mf scale's items as making the man or woman “more masculine,” “less masculine,” “more feminine,” and “less feminine.” These four responses were not mutually exclusive; a “no response” option was also provided. The students' evaluations were coded as bipolar or unipolar. When S placed a behavior along a continuum with masculinity at one pole and femininity at the other, his conceptualization was termed bipolar. on the other hand, if he placed a behavior either along a continuum with less masculine on one end of the dimension and more masculine at the other, or along a continuum leading from less feminine to more feminine, his conceptualization of the hypothetical person's answer to an item was coded as unipolar. on the assumption that unipolar conceptualizations cause elevations on the Mf scale, it was predicted that: (a) Ss would use unipolar dimensions extensively; (b) the 40 sex-discriminating items of the Mf scale of the MMPI would be coded more times as bipolar than the 20 items which do not discriminate between the sexes; (c) the 20 nondiscriminating items would be coded more times as unipolar than the 40 discriminating items; and (d) male Ss who usually elevate on the Mf scale more than females would, in comparison to females, use more unipolar conceptualizations. The results were in the predicted direction for all hypotheses, but the third hypothesis failed to reach statistical significance. The implications of these findings for the construction of more sophisticated Mf measures were discussed.